With rapid development of virtualization technologies, a network function virtualization (NFV) technology becomes more important. The NFV technology refers to instantiating (instantiate) a VNF such that the VNF can run on a general physical device to implement a function of a dedicated network element device in a network using the general physical device. For example, a serving gateway (SGW) function is instantiated such that the SGW function can run on the general physical device to implement the SGW function using the general physical device.
Generally, multiple VNFs can form an NS. In a procedure of instantiation for an NS, a network manager (NM) sends an NS instantiation request message to a NFV orchestrator (NFVO). The NS instantiation request message includes instantiation information of the NS. The NFVO may perform, according to the instantiation request message, a related connection operation on multiple VNFs satisfying the instantiation information of the NS such that the multiple VNFs form the NS. In this way, instantiation for the NS is completed.
However, in the foregoing procedure of instantiation for an NS, the NM can learn only instantiation information of an NS, but cannot learn multiple VNFs forming the NS. Consequently, when the NM needs to maintain an NS, because the NM cannot determine multiple VNFs forming the NS, the NM cannot maintain the NS.